As any major honors show approaches, there’s always a clamor for the addition fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and delight the spirits of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. This is the request: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it’s very subjective, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies avoid this approach. But it is an unavoidable compromise in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include genre categories for Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these award types successfully include many game types, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: structural challenges in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked completely that year
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Well-known matching games count as most engaged experiences globally and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and engaging across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. You could fill multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent so many good games out.
Restating the point, these include experiences that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay generations.
